Saturday, July 25, 2009
Lake Smokey
So it turns out summer does eventually arrive at 54deg N - in fact, it's a sweltering +31. This necessitated finding a relaxing body of water in which to immerse oneself - or more accurately, one's one year old. We ascertained that an hour's drive would take us to a popular swimming lake.
Some problems were encountered. The public reserve/swimming access area at this massive lake (with many kms of shorefront) spans all of 200m. OK, so be it - we were there early enough to secure a spot under the shade provided by the sole, rather pitiful tree. There we joined some others, and were soon accompanied by more.
And never have I see a more woebetide collection of beachgoers. Ranging in size from XXL to morbidly obese, their main interests were smoking, adding another layer of sunburn on top of yesterday's, and waddling very slowly. Yes, it was fat, smoking redneck day at the beach (fat, smoking brownnecks also welcome).
The thing that bothered me was not so much that there were obviously intent on waddling to their early graves, but the bloody ubiquitous smoke. Less for myself than for L'il Red, of course. And given that were basically committed to our prime shady spot (and the remaining 190m of foreshore were quickly filling up too), there was little escape from it short of going home.
Generally I couldn't give a stuff when adults choose to smoke outside, but it's not OK when you're packed cheek-by-jowl at the beach. Time to make like Manly and introduce a smoking ban!
Some problems were encountered. The public reserve/swimming access area at this massive lake (with many kms of shorefront) spans all of 200m. OK, so be it - we were there early enough to secure a spot under the shade provided by the sole, rather pitiful tree. There we joined some others, and were soon accompanied by more.
And never have I see a more woebetide collection of beachgoers. Ranging in size from XXL to morbidly obese, their main interests were smoking, adding another layer of sunburn on top of yesterday's, and waddling very slowly. Yes, it was fat, smoking redneck day at the beach (fat, smoking brownnecks also welcome).
The thing that bothered me was not so much that there were obviously intent on waddling to their early graves, but the bloody ubiquitous smoke. Less for myself than for L'il Red, of course. And given that were basically committed to our prime shady spot (and the remaining 190m of foreshore were quickly filling up too), there was little escape from it short of going home.
Generally I couldn't give a stuff when adults choose to smoke outside, but it's not OK when you're packed cheek-by-jowl at the beach. Time to make like Manly and introduce a smoking ban!
Labels: beaches, brownnecks, obesity, rednecks, smoking
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